Video Games x Healthcare - Out-Of-Pocket ✦
Video games: Fun, visually breathtaking, easy to learn, doesn’t tell me I should reduce my salt intake because of familial risk for hypertension.
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Everything I share — writing, short curated lists, and links. You can also find me on Threads.
Avocado Time ✦
Face-to-face is like a perfect avocado. The cost of in-sync time, real-time interaction time, that’s time that we don’t get again.
Twitter Pulls a Patreon ✦
A staff writing job in journalism can be a wonderful thing, and there are far too few of them available these days. But they also come with a relatively low ceiling, at least by the standards of top performers in other industries. An ace reporter at a major American newspaper will struggle to make more than $150,000 a year. That’s great money compared to most jobs in America. It’s also probably not enough to buy a house in any of the cities where, before the pandemic, you could actually get a job paying $150,000 a year.In exchange for that low ceiling, though, reporters got some great benefits, especially if their newsroom was unionized: health care, legal protections, editing, distribution of their work, and a regular salary. The flip side is that the job has not been a particularly stable one over the past two decades: layoffs occur with alarming frequency; American newsrooms lost 16,000 jobs last year.
A Bias to Action ✦
Velocity does not equal haste. It is possible to deliver high quality work at high velocity. The way to do that is to have a maniacal focus on the fastest path to value. Most delays in projects are not because the person was trying to avoid low quality work. Most delays are because the team wanted to do too much and spent weeks working and planning, and ended up not doing anything at all. If we narrow our focus to the increments of value we are delivering, we can ship quality with velocity.
In Texas’s Black-Swan Blackout, Everything Went Wrong at Once - Bloomberg ✦
The greatest forced blackout in U.S. history, as this event has almost certainly become, was the result of a systemic and multifaceted failure. There are no promises of when power will be restored and little likelihood that the episode won’t be repeated in a corner of the country hard hit by climate change.
The climate is drunk again - HEATED ✦
Francis’s peer-reviewed papers showed a fascinating phenomenon: That as the Arctic was getting warmer and warmer, the polar vortex was taking more and more drunken adventures down south.
The Journalistic Tattletale and Censorship Industry Suffers Several Well-Deserved Blows - Glenn Greenwald ✦
These hall-monitor reporters are a major factor explaining why tech monopolies, which (for reasons of self-interest and ideology) never wanted the responsibility to censor, now do so with abandon and seemingly arbitrary blunt force: they are shamed by the world’s loudest media companies when they do not.
A Study of More Than 250 Platforms Reveals Why Most Fail ✦
We grouped the most common mistakes into four categories: (1) mispricing on one side of the market, (2) failure to develop trust with users and partners, (3) prematurely dismissing the competition, and (4) entering too late.
An Interview With Eric Seufert About Apple, Facebook, and Mobile Advertising ✦
I’ve written about Apple and Amazon’s organizational designs on various occasions, including Apple’s Organizational Crossroads and The Amazon Tax. What is fascinating is that the two companies are polar opposites of each other: Apple is extremely centralized and focused, befitting its obsession with being the best, while Amazon is extremely decentralized and independent, befitting its obsession with experimentation. It’s why Apple is known for multiple groundbreaking products, while Amazon is known for multiple groundbreaking businesses. I think, though, the fact they are so drastically different speaks to why Bezos and Jobs rank so highly as CEOs: the only way you end up on the extreme end of the organizational structure axis is via clear intent and purpose from the leader.
Embracing Asynchronous Communication ✦
In an all-remote setting, where team members are empowered to live and work where they're most fulfilled, mastering asynchronous workflows is vital to avoiding dysfunction and enjoying outsized efficiencies. Increasingly, operating asynchronously is necessary even in colocated companies which have team members on various floors or offices, especially when multiple time zones are involved.
Kristin Baker Spohn of CRV- 5 Things I Need to See Before Making a VC Investment ✦
One of my favorite quotes is in the final book, when Harry asks Dumbledore, “Is this real or is all of this happening in my head?” And Dumbledore responds, __“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”__ For me, that quote is equally true of entrepreneurs who aren’t afraid to believe in the things that are happening in their head, and make them real.
Opinion the Science of Reasoning With Unreasonable People ✦
When we try to change a person’s mind, our first impulse is to preach about why we’re right and prosecute them for being wrong. Yet experiments show that preaching and prosecuting typically backfire — and what doesn’t sway people may strengthen their beliefs. Much as a vaccine inoculates the physical immune system against a virus, the act of resistance fortifies the psychological immune system. Refuting a point of view produces antibodies against future attempts at influence, making people more certain of their own opinions and more ready to rebut alternatives.
The New Tech Stack for Virtual-First Care - Andreessen Horowitz ✦
The true promise of digital health is the delivery of high-quality care at a fraction of the cost, and at dramatically higher scale than incumbents—by using modern tech and AI to do what historically has been done through human labor or poorly functioning IT products. A risk to this promise is that every digital health company ends up allocating all of its cost savings to rebuilding the same components of their operating systems over and over again from scratch, across their separate walled gardens.
A Quickstart Guide to Positioning ✦
”Positioning defines how your product is a leader at delivering something that a well-defined set of customers cares a lot about.”
Finding the Truth - Superorganizers - Every ✦
This is a very annoying way to live. I want ideas to carry over from one day to the next, and when they contradict each other, I want to get to the bottom of it and figure out the truth. I want to feel like my beliefs about the world are well-grounded, and unknotted—I want my beliefs to be more like a chef’s mis en place than a hairball at the bottom of a drain.
The normie case for filibuster reform ✦
Ending the filibuster isn’t about enacting an extreme agenda, it’s about empowering the more moderate half of the Democratic caucus to set the agenda. They ought to step up and do it.
We Don’t Sell Saddles Here ✦
However, almost all of them have no idea that they want Slack. How could they? They’ve never heard of it. And only a vanishingly small number will have imagined it on their own. They think they want something different (if they think they want anything at all). They definitely are not looking for Slack. (But then no-one was looking for Post-it notes or GUIs either.)
Women Are Still a Rarity at Tech Unicorns, Survey Says ✦
Male leaders stay at unicorns twice as long as female leaders: The study found that the average tenure for female founders is just 1.78 years, while the average tenure for male leaders is 2.66 years.
The dinosaur-killing asteroid that struck Earth was unbelievably huge and fast ✦
“The meteorite itself was so massive that it didn’t notice any atmosphere whatsoever,” said Rebolledo. “It was traveling 20 to 40 kilometers per second, 10 kilometers — probably 14 kilometers — wide, pushing the atmosphere and building such incredible pressure that the ocean in front of it just went away.”
What Madison Cawthorn Saw at the Capitol Insurrection ✦
The language of war is standard in politics — to go by bad newspaper copy, lawmakers are always “firing salvos” in “battleground” states — and fight is a word that, in American elections, has not often been interpreted literally.
Seniors & Social Connection — Interview With Papa CEO & Founder Andrew Parker ✦
I have been in digital health for 10+ years and saw early a lot of the issues are social vs. clinical. Loneliness is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day according to an AARP study. Think about that! The pandemic has only strengthened our conviction that companionship is care and being a Pal has a positive impact.
Learning architecture and urban planning from a video game- Animal Crossing x A Pattern Language JamesStuber.com ✦
But the physical space around you does have a strong influence–on your mood and even on your behavior. The layout of your town or city changes who you interact with, and what those interactions look like. __In our homes, lighting, smell, and even the arrangement of furniture all affect us in subtle ways, even if we are tied to our screens.__
Meet the American Rescue Act - Slow Boring ✦
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was $787 billion which is like $950 billion in today’s dollars. The bipartisan Covid relief bill that passed in December was about that big and the CARES Act was much larger. But despite that, Biden is talking about doing a bill that’s about double the ARRA in inflation-adjusted terms and he’s saying that’s just going to be the first of two bills.
How to Talk with Your Team About the Violence at the U.S. Capitol ✦
Many leaders are unsure about how to discuss current events that elicit strong opinions and emotions from their team members and so their default is to say nothing or make only a passing comment. Resist that tendency. You need to instead lean into this moment of disbelief, frustration, anger, fear, and anything else people might be feeling — not only today but from here on out. When something unspeakable occurs, you won’t find the perfect words to calm your people and restore their focus. No one does. But it is important that you acknowledge pain when it is felt. It is top of mind for your employees, and they are waiting to hear from you.
Procrastinate Much Manage Your Emotions, Not Your Time. - The New York Times ✦
After many months of failing to make progress, Mr. Adams scheduled a solo writing retreat for several weeks at a country manor. Unfortunately, he ended up befriending the hosts, and he spent most of the trip drinking wine. Just weeks before his manuscript was due, Mr. Adams had produced just 25 pages. “I love deadlines,” Mr. Adams has said. “I like the whooshing sound they make as they go by.”
🚨 Twitter dumps Trump - Platformer ✦
I suspect we will long debate what would have been, in retrospect, the right time to ban Donald Trump from Twitter. What cannot be seriously debated, watching how this ugly week in American history has unfolded, is that the man had any legitimate claim left to using the platform. Increasingly, he has no legitimate claim to any social media platform at all.
This Is The Face Of The GOP Now - The Weekly Dish ✦
Trump is now and always has been delusional. He lives in an imaginary world. His insistence that he won the last election in a “landslide” is psychologically indistinguishable from his declaration on his first day that his Inaugural crowd was larger than his predecessor’s. For four years, the actual evidence did not matter. It still doesn’t. Any rumor that helps him, however ludicrous, is true; every cold fact that hurts him, however trivial or banal, doesn’t exist. For four years as president, any advisor who told him the truth, rather than perpetuating his delusions, had an immediate expiration date. For four years, an army of volunteer propagandists knowingly disseminated his insane, cascading torrent of lies.
Salary Negotiation- Make More Money, Be More Valued Kalzumeus Software ✦
People say that your house is the biggest purchase you’ll ever make, but it won’t be the most consequential negotiation. If you’re sane only about 25% or so of your gross income is subject to the results of real estate negotiations. Close to 100% is subject to the results of salary negotiations. Thus, your salary negotiations are probably going to be the most important financial decisions you will ever make.
The Plague Year ✦
The Trump Administration jettisoned the Obama playbook. In 2019, H.H.S. conducted Crimson Contagion, a simulation examining the government’s ability to contain a pandemic. Among the participants were the Pentagon, the N.S.C., hospitals, local and regional health-care departments, the American Red Cross, and twelve state governments. The scenario envisioned an international group of tourists visiting China who become infected with a novel influenza and spread it worldwide. There’s no vaccine; antiviral drugs are ineffective.
20 Things I've Learned in 2020 ✦
"Hell yes or no" is a good mantra to apply to almost everything. Every "maybe in the future" and "I'm not sure" fills me with anxiety and regret, even if it's not always obvious.
2020- The Exit Interview - McSweeney’s Internet Tendency ✦
2020: Look, it’s not just one Year that kills someone; it’s all the Years combined. That’s how Time works.
Forget New Year's Resolutions and Conduct a 'Past Year Review' Instead – The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss ✦
And just remember: it’s not enough to remove the negative. That simply creates a void. Get the positive things on the calendar ASAP, lest they get crowded out by the bullshit and noise that will otherwise fill your days. Good luck and godspeed!
The Power of Keystone Habits With Roam Research ✦
Keystone Habits are habits that you use to make it easier to do other habits because you perform them regularly already and all you have to do is chain a new habit on at the end. A popular example is brushing your teeth in the morning - you do that already, so if you want to remember to take your meds or fish oil or whatever, do it immediately after and it's going to be much easier to stick to it than if you did it randomly.
How to read more books Psyche Guides ✦
I envy voracious book readers. They seem worldly and wise. Also, whatever is happening in their lives, they’re never completely on their own – they always have their books.
The Baby From Willow- Then And Now ✦
Twins Kate and Ruth Greenfield are the only ones credited with playing baby Elora Danan in Ron Howard’s 1988 fantasy adventure starring Warwick Davis and Val Kilmer, with a story by George Lucas. In fact, four girls played the infant – so what are they all up to now?
Willow (1988) - Trivia - IMDb ✦
According to Warwick Davis, the film had the largest ever casting call for little people at the time. Between 225 and 240 actors were hired for the film.
2020 Yearly Review ✦
I will never forget the moment I realized they would pass. "How will you grow this to a $1B business?" they asked, and despite all the preparation, we did not have a convincing answer.
The Magnet 0019- Unless It's a “Hell Yeah!” Then Say “No, Thanks” ✦
It’s easy to say yes to a future commitment because it doesn’t affect your present self. You can ignore the commitment for days, weeks, or months, but eventually, you will have to do the work that your future self promised. Now, whenever Kevin gets invited to do anything in the future, he mentally swaps the due date with “tomorrow.” So, “Can you give a keynote speech at our conference in Tulsa three months from now?” Becomes “Can you give a keynote speech at our conference in Tulsa tomorrow?” It’s much easier to decide whether you want to do something when you make this change to the question.
We Don’t Talk Enough About Money in Silicon Valley. No, Really. ✦
One of the things that’ll kill you is equating wealth with self-worth and constantly comparing yourself to your peer group. The money ball bounces too randomly around here and because of outsized returns from new ventures, being at the right company in the right role during the right few years can be worth $$$$$.
Mediums ✦
It’s all the emails in the middle that are the slog. Emails that need attention, but they aren’t exciting. They require work, but work that really doesn’t amount to much. There is some satisfaction to getting through them all, but it’s unfortunate that that bulk of work is ultimately going to be worth so little.
The Pandemic Ruined Time ✦
Stress has also robbed us of another anchor that grounds us in time: a conception of the future. When jobs are unstable, school schedules are up in the air, and rules regularly shift, it’s hard to envision what might happen next.
A New Way of Working- How Clinicians + Technology Will Solve Our Healthcare Crisis ✦
Whether in a rural town with limited provider options, an underserved community without quality clinics, or a bustling metropolis with shockingly few available doctor’s appointments, too many people cannot access the care they need, when they need it.
What Does 2021 Hold for Virtual Care ✦
At the same time, there are caveats to fulfilling the promise of virtual care, including a murky regulatory environment and a knee-jerk reaction to simply bringing a broken system online.
Hello COVID-19, It’s Me, Telemedicine. ✦
Even those that aren’t experiencing symptoms are desperate for clinically-sound education from a medical professional or trusted clinical resource. That’s another incredible opportunity in which telehealth can rise up. It possesses the power to both address the concerns of the “worried well” through education while providing a smarter means of triage and care navigation to those potentially infected by the virus.
The Glorious, Almost-Disconnected Boredom of My Walk in Japan ✦
When I walked into the jazz cafe, I had been walking for 25 days across the country and had never once worried about my safety. It's not that I feel especially unsafe when walking around the US, but I feel the constant hum of violence in the background. In contrast, on this walk in Japan everyone was courteous. Lovely, even. Sometimes a bit bossy, but never malicious. Did I have to sneak out of a barely functioning inn in the middle of the night because the room smelled overbearingly of urine? Sure. But what I saw around me were people who were taken care of—by their families, communities, government—a feeling which, in turn, made me feel hopeful in the biggest, most cosmic way of being hopeful.
And a Pony at Your Birthday Party ✦
Many of the interactions we have that are ostensibly for us are actually for other people. Once we can see who it’s for, it’s a lot easier to do it well.
Financing the American Home ✦
...I don’t understand the most American of products: the 30-year fixed-rate fully prepayable mortgage.
LatinX-plaining the Election ✦
Like it or not, while politicians may trumpet the finest members of their political tent to supporters, they’re also liable for the worst members, at least as perceived by their enemies. Just as Trump was pegged as at least passingly sympathetic to, if not outright supportive of, white nationalists with his failure to renounce their sordid lot during the Charlottesville tragedy, the same dynamics hit Biden with his political coalition. I’m afraid you can’t quite have the Bernie wing inside your tent without that rhetoric coming to signify your candidacy, at least partially, to those who view such tendencies with suspicion.
Learning Through Play ✦
When the pressure mounts to be productive every minute of the day, we have much to gain from doing all we can to carve out time to play. Take away prescriptions and obligations, and we gravitate towards whatever interests us the most. Just like children and baby elephants, we can learn important lessons through play. It can also give us a new perspective on topics we take for granted—such as the way we represent numbers.
Progress, Stagnation, and Flying Cars ✦
The book points out that the major value in a flying car (as with supersonic) would not be in taking the same trips you do now, only a bit faster. Instead, it would be in taking the trips you don’t take now, because they’re too inconvenient. A flying car would shrink your world, expanding the radius of what you would consider for a commute, a shopping trip, a visit to friends, a business meeting, or a weekend vacation. Indeed, Hall cites literature from travel studies finding that people in all societies travel on average about an hour a day, whether walking barefoot or driving on the highway. And he points out that increasing the effective radius for each of those trips increases the effective area open to you quadratically (doubling your travel radius means four times as many destinations).